Adobe has released a new version of its Flash Player for Mac that officially supports hardware acceleration for H.264 video content.

The update 10.1.82.76 was announced Tuesday by Adobe product manager Thibault Imbert on his blog. The feature, code-named "Gala," had been announced several months prior, but was unavailable with the official release of Flash Player 10.1 for Mac in June. In a break from usual protocol, Adobe enabled the new feature in a security release.

Hardware acceleration in Flash Player 10.1 for Mac is available only for Mac OS X Snow Leopard and the following graphics cards: NVIDIA GeForce 9400M, GeForce 320M or GeForce GT 330M.

According to Adobe, a CPU utilization reduction of up to two-thirds is possible when GPU hardware acceleration is active.

Flash Player for Mac has recently been the subject of controversy. In April, Apple CEO Steve Jobs published an open letter criticizing Adobe's Flash offerings. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen subsequently dismissed Jobs' letter as a "smokescreen."

I have an iMac with a ATi x1600 graphic card. Anyone know how to hack Flash or OS X.6 for that matter to allow the graphic card to work on flash video, etc. I know that the card can do it its just that the OS/Flash doesnt support it and I was wondering if anyone figured a way to enable it for good.

Funny thing adobe only supports nvidia. Apple just released their mac pros and aren't offering nvidia as an option. Once again adobe fails by falling behind. I see this as a fine example of what Jobs was referring to in regards to developers holding the ios back by not utilising up to date hardware. Thereby holding features hostage by software that simply lags. I have an ATI Radeon 4870 hd in my mac pro. And flash runs like hell. Was hoping they would have showed some dedication by now to have a decent desktop version. If they can't do that how are they ever gonna get a mobile version up to par?

And for that matter. Their CS Suites are getting lazy, innovative and buggier every release. Just what in the he'll is really going on at adobe. Perhaps the shareholders should oust some people!?

Funny thing adobe only supports nvidia. Apple just released their mac pros and aren't offering nvidia as an option. Once again adobe fails by falling behind.

Adobe is using official Apple APIs to access the hardware acceleration, these APIs only provide access to (recent) Nvidia graphic cards.

I don't know how easy it would be for Adobe to use other APIs that support hardware acceleration with a wider selection of video cards. I don't know whether such APIs even exist or whether other vendors program the hardware acceleration themselves. But the precise choice of supported graphic cards was made by Apple.

Funny thing adobe only supports nvidia. Apple just released their mac pros and aren't offering nvidia as an option. Once again adobe fails by falling behind. I see this as a fine example of what Jobs was referring to in regards to developers holding the ios back by not utilising up to date hardware. Thereby holding features hostage by software that simply lags. I have an ATI Radeon 4870 hd in my mac pro. And flash runs like hell. Was hoping they would have showed some dedication by now to have a decent desktop version. If they can't do that how are they ever gonna get a mobile version up to par?

And for that matter. Their CS Suites are getting lazy, innovative and buggier every release. Just what in the he'll is really going on at adobe. Perhaps the shareholders should oust some people!?

It's not the fault of Adobe that only a subset of all graphics cards currently deployed on Apple machines are supported. Apple's official API supports only a few cards, namely the newer NVidia 9400M, the 330 and the 320. Even the older 8600GT-M isn't on the list. Though I believe hardware-wise it is also capable of H/W decompression.

Don't care anymore. With the Safari Youtube5 Plugin I haven't used flash for quite a while. If I accouter Flash anyway, I just use the Develop Panel to switch to the iPad UserId. Has worked every time till now... Oh and I used to love Chromium but Safari rules! Give it a try...

Seriously, do you even use Adobe CS products. You seem to be just copying what others say. As a matter of fact, "innovative" is a good thing.

Quote:

Originally Posted by davidcarswell

Funny thing adobe only supports nvidia. Apple just released their mac pros and aren't offering nvidia as an option. Once again adobe fails by falling behind. I see this as a fine example of what Jobs was referring to in regards to developers holding the ios back by not utilising up to date hardware. Thereby holding features hostage by software that simply lags. I have an ATI Radeon 4870 hd in my mac pro. And flash runs like hell. Was hoping they would have showed some dedication by now to have a decent desktop version. If they can't do that how are they ever gonna get a mobile version up to par?

And for that matter. Their CS Suites are getting lazy, innovative and buggier every release. Just what in the he'll is really going on at adobe. Perhaps the shareholders should oust some people!?

It's not the fault of Adobe that only a subset of all graphics cards currently deployed on Apple machines are supported. Apple's official API supports only a few cards, namely the newer NVidia 9400M, the 330 and the 320. Even the older 8600GT-M isn't on the list. Though I believe hardware-wise it is also capable of H/W decompression.

The beauty of it is that if Adobe are using the documented APIs, once Apple get around to updating that support it should work right off the bat.

It's not the fault of Adobe that only a subset of all graphics cards currently deployed on Apple machines are supported. Apple's official API supports only a few cards, namely the newer NVidia 9400M, the 330 and the 320. Even the older 8600GT-M isn't on the list. Though I believe hardware-wise it is also capable of H/W decompression.

i bought a 2008 macbook pro(512MB 8600GT) for more than $2,000 and it already feels obsolete
i have to make it last one more year until the 3yr warranty runs out. It sucks having an 8600gt and not being able to use its full potential!! do you think the hardware acceleration would make it run cooler?? if so i'll keep my an eye out some sort of hack.

Adobe is using official Apple APIs to access the hardware acceleration, these APIs only provide access to (recent) Nvidia graphic cards.

I don't know how easy it would be for Adobe to use other APIs that support hardware acceleration with a wider selection of video cards. I don't know whether such APIs even exist or whether other vendors program the hardware acceleration themselves. But the precise choice of supported graphic cards was made by Apple.

It's not the fault of Adobe that only a subset of all graphics cards currently deployed on Apple machines are supported. Apple's official API supports only a few cards, namely the newer NVidia 9400M, the 330 and the 320. Even the older 8600GT-M isn't on the list. Though I believe hardware-wise it is also capable of H/W decompression.

While it is true that the particular API's flash player is using now are restricted to a few NVidia cards, various other options for hw accelerated video on OS X have been available to Adobe all the time. Snow Leopard has OpenCL which can be used to offload large parts of the decoding work, and before that bare-bones OpenGL GLSL would have been a possibility. I admit that it's not nearly as easy or convenient as getting almost a complete H264 decoder on a silver platter (the API's they are using right now), but Adobe is big enough to develop or buy a video decoder using one of these 2 alternatives. A GLSL or OpenCL based decoder would have the additional benefit of being portable to other systems such as Linux, which will probably never have hw accelerated Flash video because no standardized API for easy video playback exists on Linux at all. In fact, even on Windows there is nothing like the API's that Adobe is now using on OS X, Windows has DXVA, but that still requires quite a lot of effort, since it only provides a set of building blocks, not a full video decoding pipeline.

Don't care anymore. With the Safari Youtube5 Plugin I haven't used flash for quite a while. If I accouter Flash anyway, I just use the Develop Panel to switch to the iPad UserId. Has worked every time till now... Oh and I used to love Chromium but Safari rules! Give it a try...

Why do you need a plugin? Just go to youtube.com/html5 and join the html5 beta. Problem solved.

-kpluck

Do you use MagicJack?

The default settings will automatically charge your credit card each year for service renewal. You will not be notified or warned in anyway. You can turn auto renewal off.

This is going to sound stupid BUT other than happening to catch stories such as this how does one know there are updates to flash? Are these updates installed automatically? I just ran a software update and my system was "up to date."

Just say no to MacMall. They don't honor their promotions and won't respond to customer inquiries. There are better retailers out there.

i bought a 2008 macbook pro(512MB 8600GT) for more than $2,000 and it already feels obsolete
i have to make it last one more year until the 3yr warranty runs out. It sucks having an 8600gt and not being able to use its full potential!! do you think the hardware acceleration would make it run cooler?? if so i'll keep my an eye out some sort of hack.

Steve wants you to upgrade. But cool, now Flash is very slick on MacBooks! No need to complain any more, Steve!

The beauty of it is that if Adobe are using the documented APIs, once Apple get around to updating that support it should work right off the bat.

I wouldn't hold my breath. Apple almost certainly won't add support for older cards. It's just not worth dedicating development resources to, in their opinion. They'd rather you upgraded to the latest and best.

I wouldn't hold my breath. Apple almost certainly won't add support for older cards. It's just not worth dedicating development resources to, in their opinion. They'd rather you upgraded to the latest and best.

This is going to sound stupid BUT other than happening to catch stories such as this how does one know there are updates to flash? Are these updates installed automatically? I just ran a software update and my system was "up to date."

Ironically, it's sometimes a bit confusing where to go to update Flash.

Imagine users now having to worry, "Oh, I gotta get 10.something.something" etc. And depending on developer blogs and tech websites.

Adobe has just gotten too big and too bloated for their own good. Now they have to follow the Microsoft path of even more bloated "features" and "benefits" to keep you using their ecosystem. They keep adding tons of new products like Flex, Air, etc. and the PDF stuff is totally overblown nowadays.

CS4 is alright, but not sure if CS5 is any kind of necessary upgrade at this stage for me.

Thibault Imbert wrote::
Hi Ozren,
What is your configuration ? The video you tried ? Remember there are some requirements in terms of OS version and graphics card and the dimensions of the content being decoded.
For now :Hardware accelerated decode requires Mac OS X 10.6.3 and either NVIDIA GeForce 9400M, GeForce 320M or GeForce GT 330M GPUs.
Also :Video clips will a width of 864 fallback to software H264 decoding on the nVidia GeForce 9400M. This is a known limitation of the GeForce 9400M drivers. Unfortunately, YouTube Clips at 480p resolution often use a width of 864. Switch to 720p or 1080p to benefit from hardware acceleration for these clips. The hardware decoder will not be used for video with frame dimensions smaller than 480×320. For video smaller than that size, the cpu/speed improvements for using the GPU rather than the CPU are negligible.
Those restrictions are dictated by NVIDIA and Apple.
Thibault
Tuesday, August 10, 2010 at 11:34 pm #

3. Where are all these wonderful Adobe developments on mobile phones? Not that widespread yet. Will the Dell Streak have it? Oops, guess not.. "The device will ship with the older 1.6 version of Android. Over-the-air upgrades to Android 2.2 have been promised later this year".

4. F**K Flash Video ... The faster it goes away the better.

5. Again, THIS IS ALL WHAT OPENCL is for. Why is Adobe following a programming model that is dictated by specific cards and drivers ???

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kolchak

I wouldn't hold my breath. Apple almost certainly won't add support for older cards. It's just not worth dedicating development resources to, in their opinion. They'd rather you upgraded to the latest and best.

Quote:

Originally Posted by djsherly

Thinking more about the more recent ATI cards coming through.

Quote:

Originally Posted by gotApple

Steve wants you to upgrade. But cool, now Flash is very slick on MacBooks! No need to complain any more, Steve!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Apple 1984

Adobe is yesterday's news.

Quote:

Originally Posted by d-range

While it is true that the particular API's flash player is using now are restricted to a few NVidia cards, various other options for hw accelerated video on OS X have been available to Adobe all the time. Snow Leopard has OpenCL which can be used to offload large parts of the decoding work, and before that bare-bones OpenGL GLSL would have been a possibility. I admit that it's not nearly as easy or convenient as getting almost a complete H264 decoder on a silver platter (the API's they are using right now), but Adobe is big enough to develop or buy a video decoder using one of these 2 alternatives. A GLSL or OpenCL based decoder would have the additional benefit of being portable to other systems such as Linux, which will probably never have hw accelerated Flash video because no standardized API for easy video playback exists on Linux at all. In fact, even on Windows there is nothing like the API's that Adobe is now using on OS X, Windows has DXVA, but that still requires quite a lot of effort, since it only provides a set of building blocks, not a full video decoding pipeline.

Quote:

Originally Posted by RationalTroll

+1 Insightful

Quote:

Originally Posted by noirdesir

Adobe is using official Apple APIs to access the hardware acceleration, these APIs only provide access to (recent) Nvidia graphic cards.

I don't know how easy it would be for Adobe to use other APIs that support hardware acceleration with a wider selection of video cards. I don't know whether such APIs even exist or whether other vendors program the hardware acceleration themselves. But the precise choice of supported graphic cards was made by Apple.

I wonder if this version also fixes te fact that Flash now crashes every browser on my Mac about 60% of the time.

I can't recall Flash crashing my browser at any time. I am always scratching my head - figuratively - at all the problems and hatred people on here seem to have with Flash as I don't experience any issues.

I wouldn't hold my breath. Apple almost certainly won't add support for older cards. It's just not worth dedicating development resources to, in their opinion. They'd rather you upgraded to the latest and best.

I have an iMac with a ATi x1600 graphic card. Anyone know how to hack Flash or OS X.6 for that matter to allow the graphic card to work on flash video, etc. I know that the card can do it its just that the OS/Flash doesnt support it and I was wondering if anyone figured a way to enable it for good.

Thanks

Ask Shantanu Narayen. He has a pretty good record of responding to open letters.

5. Again, THIS IS ALL WHAT OPENCL is for. Why is Adobe following a programming model that is dictated by specific cards and drivers ???

If you've used almost any video player on OS X, aside from Quicktime, there was no h.264 hardware decoding until very recently. It didn't matter if it was VLC, Boxee, XMBC or a derivative or Adobe's flash player or something else like Silverlight. Don't tell me, that's because no one other than Apple has a clue about coding, right? Wrong...

Apple simply did not make the APIs available to allow this, and squawking 'that's what OpenCL is for' doesn't make any difference without the drivers supporting the rhetoric. The fact is, OS X has some very limited and fussy limitations when it comes to hardware video playback, and the only people to blame are Apple and their hardware partners.

There is a very simple reason why Windows users have had better video playback performance than OS X users (outside of Quicktime/h.264), and it's because it's easy to implement, because ATI and nVidia (as well as Microsoft) and made it that way. Apple needs to get out of its own way...

Now things are actually improving. There was an app released very recently on the iPad that allows you watch xVid videos revently in the .avi format (cineXplayer). There is no hardware acceleration but it doesn't appear to affect battery life - the bet is that Apple will yank it - personally I don't know why anyone would need to use xVid when h.264 conversion with Handbrake is far superior, but that's hardly the point.

As for ATI... well, their hardware playback is a right mess, even on Windows. I know, I have a very powerful 4890 in my Windows gaming rig, and in particular hardware encode is low quality and buggy - so I fallback to the CPU, which luckily is a fast and inexpensive Phenom II from AMD.

The 8600 not being supported is pretty contraversial... and you won't like the reason why. The 9400m is actually virtually identical to the 8600m... both have 16 stream processors and the 8600m has a slight bandwidth advantage because it has descrete memory, but aside from that, the performance is about the same. The 9600m has twice as many stream processors. So, the ONLY reason the 8600m is not supported, is because the OS X drivers don't allow it. That's not adobe's fault.

Now, before you accuse me of anything, I love my 3 macs, my iPad and my iPhone, and I can't wait for Flash to die... but Apple has as much to answer for here as adobe.